Remember the epic battle that took place five years ago between 50 Cent and Kanye West? Yeah, probably not, so here's a refresher: Both 50 and Kanye dropped massively anticipated albums on the same day and in the heat of the moment, 50 Cent promised to quit rap if 'Ye bested him in first-week album sales.
"If Kanye West sells more records than 50 Cent on September 11, [2007], I’ll no longer write music. I’ll write music and work with my other artists, but I won’t put out any more solo albums," Fif told SOHH.com.
Well, that week came, the records dropped and Kanye's Graduation outsold 50's Curtis by 266,000 copies. As you might have noticed in the five years since then, 50 Cent did not, in fact, make good on his promise to retire. So recently, XXL got Fif to look back on that threat to call it a day and asked, "Wha happened?"
"That was something that we created,” Jackson told XXL. “Obviously, it riled the fans up in every way and the results are always bigger sales than usual. Both of the numbers were bigger than what they would have been [otherwise]," he said. Even by losing to West, 50 still sold a whopping 691,000 in a week. "We didn’t have no beef at all…. It was just great marketing."
What?! "No beef"? "Just marketing"? These are the words of a cold, calculating businessman. Not what I'd expect from the man who once bared his soul with lyrics like, "I love you like a fat kid love cake."
To think that artists would make up controversies just to sell albums! It almost makes me wonder if he only endorsed headphones just to make money, But no, I'm becoming too cynical.
